Case 04 · Growth strategy · Oct - Dec 2025
Raptor Hot Sauce: a growth plan a founder can actually run.
A consultancy for a founder-run hot sauce brand: a channel plan, a content pillar system, a growth roadmap and a reusable creative kit he could keep running long after I handed it over.
- Role
- Freelance Social Media & Marketing Consultant
- Timeline
- Oct - Dec 2025
- Channels
- Instagram, TikTok, website, email, stockists
- Deliverables
- Strategy deck, asset library, recipe video template
01
Context
Raptor had a great product and strong packaging, but no consistent system for social or marketing. Rather than run the accounts for the founder, the goal was to hand over something he could run himself.
02
Approach: the strategy deck
- Channel cadence: Instagram 3x a week, TikTok 4 to 7x a week.
- Content pillars: Product & Process, Hot Takes, Food, Community and Art & Clothing, with every post laddering back to one of them.
- Growth recommendations: email capture, migrating from BigCartel to Shopify, and influencer seeding in the 5k to 20k follower range.
- A faceless vs people-led video ideas list, plus a backlog of content ideas and in-person activations such as sampling, events and stockist partnerships.
- Brand guidelines: logo usage, a secondary font recommendation and an iconography and graphics system.
Product & Process
Product-forward moments, pours, drips, close-ups. The bottle as the hero.
Hot Takes
Opinion-led posts and spicy commentary that give people something to react to.
Food
Recipes, pairings and cook-alongs that show the sauce in use.
Community
Stockists, events, customers and the people around the brand.
Art & Clothing
The illustrated side: graphics, merch and the brand's visual world.
03
The creative kit
- An illustrated social asset library built from the existing packaging.
- A recipe video I filmed and edited as a template, so the founder could shoot the next ten himself.
- Persuaded the founder to appear on camera himself rather than rely on AI-generated content, because real faces build trust in a founder-led food brand.
04
Results
Raptor left with a channel plan, a repeatable content format and a growth roadmap. The sauce was then picked up by local shops, and I supported the online advertising that turned those stockist wins into brand moments rather than one-off announcements.